By BILL VIRGIN, P-I REPORTER

Published 10:00 pm, Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Leave it to John Carlson and Ken Schram -- who together make up "The Commentators" -- to lend their unique, and acerbic, perspective on their move back to KOMO-AM/1000, where their talk show originated more than 2 1/2 years ago.

"I just hope the schizophrenic people who run this company finally make a decision that they're willing to stick to," Schram says. "I figured it out. They're moving us on average every six months. So I figure somewhere around next Easter we'll wind up on Star 101.5 spinning records."

Adds Carlson: "It's an absolutely ingenious marketing ploy on the part of Fisher management (which operates KOMO, KPLZ-FM, known as Star 101.5 and KVI-AM/570). We've got a really popular show. Let's see if you can figure out where it is."

Schram again: "We're the 'Where's Waldo?' of radio."

But they are moving not just on the dial but on the clock. "The Commentators," currently heard from 3-6 p.m. weekdays on KVI-AM, shifts to 10 a.m.-2 p.m. on KOMO as of Sept. 29. The show began on KOMO in January 2006, moved to mornings on KVI later that year and moved to afternoons on the same station in late 2007.

The move by "The Commentators" is part of multiple moves among talk radio stations. In place of "The Commentators," KVI-AM is adding Laura Ingraham's nationally syndicated talk show, which had been heard mornings on Salem Communications' local outlet KKOL-AM/1300. That station has replaced Ingraham with nationally syndicated host Mike Gallagher 6-9 a.m. weekdays.

Those moves come as KOMO-AM enters the last weeks of its six-season deal to carry the Seattle Mariners. In recent weeks the station has emphasized that losing the Mariners will have one advantage -- afternoon news and traffic reports won't be displaced by late-afternoon games from the East Coast and Midwest.

Why, then, introduce a talk show?

Fisher AM group program director Dennis Kelly said the majority of listening to an all-news station occurs in morning and afternoon drive times. "That audience gets really cranky with us when they drive home and they don't have what they expect from us."

KOMO will still carry traffic every 10 minutes during "The Commentators," but doing four hours of talk in the middle of the day is comparable to what KIRO-AM/710 offers with Dave Ross and KUOW-FM/94.9 does with "Weekday," two stations that also have strong news programming. Kelly said he's not contemplating adding other talk programs to KOMO's line-up.

At KVI, replacing "The Commentators" with Ingraham reduces its lineup of local programming -- once one of its hallmarks -- to one, Kirby Wilbur's morning-drive show.

"Audiences don't get as caught up in the 'it's a local show, it's not a local show' as we might get caught up in it," Kelly says. "If it's a good show, it's a good show," he said, adding that Ingraham is "one of the rising stars in talk radio."

Carlson says adding a nationally known conservative host like Ingraham will reassure the "KVI faithful" who might have worried that the station's format was being watered down.

Schram and Carlson will be dealing not only with the Mariners shift but with the possibility that news-talk competitor KIRO-AM will go all-sports, with its talk shows being exclusively on the FM side (KIRO-FM/97.3).

"I've never worried what anyone else is doing," Schram says. "I figure John and I handle what we do the way we do it, and just trust that people who are interested or curious are going to stroll on in, sit for a while -- or stroll in and get out of Dodge as quickly as they can. That's what we control. What everybody else is doing, that's out of our hands."

Says Carlson: "Management giving us four hours a day on the strongest signal in the Pacific Northwest with monster cume (number of people who tune in). Sounds good to me."

In other radio notes:

Local Salem station KGNW-AM/820 has named Georgene Rice as its afternoon host 4-6 p.m. weekdays. She's also on a Salem FM station in Portland. "She's had considerable success there, and we feel she is a great fit for KGNW," says program director Tom Clendening by e-mail. She will split time between the two cities. She takes over the slot that had been Thor Tolo's; he was let go by the station earlier this year.

King County Executive Ron Sims takes listener calls at 10 a.m. Thursday on "Weekday" on KUOW-FM/94.9.